Md. cop to serve 2 months for accidental training shooting

Officer William S. Kern, 46, was found guilty of reckless endangerment when he shot police recruit Raymond Gray

By Jessica Anderson
The Baltimore Sun

BALTIMORE — Baltimore Police Officer William S. Kern will serve two months in prison for shooting and critically wounding a recruit during February training exercises at the shuttered Rosewood Center in Owings Mills.

Kern, 46, was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison with all but 60 days suspended. A Baltimore County jury found him guilty in October of reckless endangerment for shooting University of Maryland police recruit Raymond Gray Feb. 12.

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Jurors did not find Kern guilty of the more serious charge of second-degree assault.

Kern had testified he thought he was holding a "simunitions" training pistol that fires paintball-like cartridges. He said he was showing trainees how dangerous it can be in real-life situations to congregate near doors, windows and hallways, when he fired at a door with a glass window and struck Gray.

Prosecutors said Kern should not have been carrying the weapon because city police guidelines prohibit live weapon at simunitions training.

Baltimore police say commanders were not aware of the exercises and that the city did not have permission to use Rosewood for training.

Gray, of Baltimore, lost sight in one eye and was hospitalized for months before moving to an out-of-state rehabilitation center.